


Toy Gun

by telekinesiskid



Category: Jessica Jones (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, F/F, Flashbacks, Funeral, Grief/Mourning, Night Terrors, POV Second Person, Post-Kilgrave, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, manslaughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:50:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6001564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You still have nightmares.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Toy Gun

**Author's Note:**

> So I actually half-wrote this a while back and forgot about it until now lmao so here is me, trying to pay my respects to one of the greatest shows I have seen IN A WHILE.
> 
> kudos to [the bae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for beta'ing this, thanks hun <3

You don’t even have a valid excuse anymore, an explanation. You can’t even say “Kilgrave Made Me Do It”, like that line of tasteless fake-ripped and fake-blooded shirts do in some local Hot Topic. You can’t even reuse the long-exhausted mantra that Trish still made you drag out whenever the guilt you got you down and floored and breathless with tears: “It’s not my fault. None of it was my fault.”

Because it is your fault.

And there’s no one here anymore to tell you that it isn’t.

 

You still have nightmares. They seemed to have subsided for a while, when there was still someone to lie next to you, but they made a strong return. If you don’t hit the floor or your couch or your unwashed bed before your body sloshes – feels fuller of alcohol than water – then you know that you’ll have them. You once heard somewhere from a dubious media outlet that over time people lose their minds to alcohol. They marinate in it, turn to mush, stagnate, go flat-out brain dead. But that hasn’t happened to you yet. Unfortunately.

You sell your couch at half-price to a neighbour down the far-end of your floor. You’ve seen their couch-surfer friends settle for musty blankets on cold floors and campers sleeping mats and sleeping bags with broken zips. They could use it more than you do. You always seem to miss the couch when you eventually try to hit it anyway.

You use the cash to buy another bottle of whiskey at the 7-Eleven down the street.

You’re just making slow, sarcastic small-talk, no eye-contact, barely present, all perfunctory, and then you hear him tell you something that elicits a new emotion out of you for the first time in weeks: surprise. “You’re a valued customer,” he says, handing over the bottle.

You wet your lips. It takes you a little while to find the words and then force them out of your mouth half-coherently – maybe the alcohol is finally starting to take a toll on your body after all – but you slur back, “I imagine all alcoholics are valued customers.”

He laughs once. “Not the ones who steal from me.”

“Too bad,” you murmur. Your hand goes for your bottle on the counter and it takes you a moment to realise that you’re already holding it. You turn to leave. “Maybe you should lower your prices,” you call back resentfully over your shoulder, but only hearty laughter follows you out. It’s a sound you hear a lot these days but you haven’t been able to quite mimic yourself.

You walk for a block or two, unhurried and wobbly, before you make the not-entirely-conscious decision to unscrew the cap. You do it so hard that you almost break the bottle neck off, but the best you do is crack it. You stop where you are, smack-dead in the middle of the sidewalk, and a flare of irritation shoots up in you for every person who casts you a repulsed look or covers their nose as they weave around you.

You throw out your arms; a little of your whiskey spills over your knuckles and slaps to the pavement. “Take a whiff, NYC,” you shout into the black-out skies, the void that has yet to take you. “I haven’t showered in three days.”

Someone shouts from above you: _“Go home you drunk bitch!”_

“ _You_ go home,” you re-join lamely, so lame that the man who called out to you doesn’t even respond. Weak. You throw up a little in your mouth, swallowing recycled alcohol and bile, and that’s what gets your feet moving again. You cap your bottle for later – it feels lighter where you feel heavier – and you walk home, keeping to the gutter, where you and your drunk ass belong.

You fade back in after a while. You don’t know where you are. You should’ve reached your apartment by now – did you pass it again and not notice?

“Shit,” you murmur, backtracking to re-check the street sign.

You read BIRCH ST. off of it and your blood floods cold with dread. You turn to run but you trip on your laces – you hear a smash by your ear, sharp cuts in your palm as your hands fly out to catch your fall – and you can’t fight it; it’s too much motion, too fast, too much memory, and you empty the contents of your stomach onto the path, putrid and foul and rank.

You hastily turn yourself over and shuffle back and back and back, as far as your shaking legs can carry you, and your wide, frightened eyes search for the sign again.

BEECH ST.

You stop.

“B…Beech Street,” you read it aloud, to be sure. You remove your hand from the pavement to sit up and wince as you feel something sticking out of it, dragging on the ground. You find a shard of dark glass wedged in deep and breathe out a tired sigh, feeling your heartrate come down, your breathing regulate. You forget to steel yourself as you yank it out and yell, _“Goddammit!”_ as you throw it at least a hundred yards down the street.

You sniff as you pull out all the little sprinkles and splinters of glass that cut into your palm. You try to remember if you have any rubbing alcohol back at your apartment/office, but you think, even if you did once, you would’ve drunk it all by now on a lean week. You wonder if it doesn’t matter, since most of the glass has touched whiskey anyway.

You get the feeling that if a certain someone were here with you today, right now, they would’ve reminded you that that’s not how it works and you know it.

You pick yourself up. It’s a struggle to stay on your feet, and you call out, “Thanks for all the help, asshole,” at a passer-by who quickens her pace when she catches your eye. You try to brush the grime and grist and gum of NYC’s pavement off your jeans, but you all you seem to do is leave smeared bloody handprints. “Ew,” you moan as you flick sick from your hair.

You leave the broken bottle behind and start in what you can only hope is the right direction back home.

 

You almost miss the funeral. If it weren’t for Malcolm you might’ve slept right through it, or done the closest thing to sleeping that you do these days, which is pass out. Malcolm let himself in – he’s your secretary or sidekick or whatever he is, so he has his own key now. He wakes you up with a slap of cold water to the face and you have him pinned and dangling from the only part of the wall that isn’t torn-up with brick bones exposed, an arm under his chin. You notice him dressed in a sombre grey suit and remember what day it is. Who he is.

He forces you into your bathroom and doesn’t let you back out until you’ve showered. You squint at an unopened bottle of body wash that you don’t remember buying, but then again you don’t remember much of anything. It’s more the suggestion of a behaviour that doesn’t quite line up with you. But you have no reason to think anything sinister of it; you wash yourself for the first time in an indeterminate while and come out smelling of orchid and coconut and God knows what else.

You own a lot of black, like your entire wardrobe was fitted around the very likely possibility of letting people down and making amends through eulogy. It’s not that hard to pick an outfit. Malcolm somehow finds a dress and proffers it, and you sneer at it. You hate dresses; you can’t stand to see yourself in them. Kilgrave put you in enough dresses for the month he had you to last you a lifetime.

You settle for a pair of dark jeans and a black shirt, a black non-leather jacket and a necklace with a solid silver heart. You still have it after all these years. It was Trish’s first birthday present to you, back before she cared whether you liked her obligatory gifts or not, before she realised that you never wear jewellery.

It’s too much to look at. You tuck it underneath your shirt.

Malcolm takes your arm and leads you out the door, locking up behind you.

You drag your feet.

 

You didn’t know what you were doing. People might’ve thought it weird – well, besides the whole queer thing. Technically she _is_ your adopted sister, but the two of you have denounced and divorced yourselves from your mother so many times that there’s barely any semblance of a family left. You both got along a lot better when you weren’t being forced to like each other, anyway. Now you got along quite well.

You never did move back in, even as Trish pleaded you to. You had your business with Malcolm now, and your office finally became a proper office. You kept armfuls of clothes in a drawer and stashed the pantry with bottles of cheap liquor in anticipation of your eventual stay-overs, when it suddenly got late and Trish made up some bull about how she saw on the news earlier that there’s a deranged maniac out in the streets, shooting everyone in sight.

You don’t remind her that you’ve taken out creeps much more dangerous than that. You nod and say with a show of faux concern, “ _Gee_ , Trish, that sounds unsafe.”

“Even for a superhero,” she adds, smiling.

You smile back.

You smile a lot more now that there’s no one to insist that you do.

 

You still have the occasional nightmare. You know when it’s a nightmare, because all the lights turn blue. Everything turns blue. The dress comes off and the bodies pile up and the empty frantic click of an unloaded pistol fills the room.

Not even the warmth of another body beside you can prevent that. Sometimes you think that might be what triggers them.

You told Trish to just back off and keep her distance, because you’re not conscious. You have no control; you don’t always immediately know what’s happening or who’s trying to wake you or why they’re in your apartment. But, of course, she doesn’t listen to you.

Once, she flew halfway across the room. You never actually woke up in time to see it happen, but you don’t doubt it. The imprint her back left on her wall was proof enough. It’s your handiwork. It’s your trademark.

The back of her head has seen more mirrors and bedside lamps and fists than she can keep count, but still, she sleeps next to you. Still, she tries to wake you and hold your head in her hands.

“You’re safe,” she assures you firmly. She has to be up and ready for a show in less than three hours – she’s going to need a lot of make-up to hide those bruises – but she still doesn’t send you out. Her eyes are red-rimmed and watery but she doesn’t lose focus on you, not for a second. Her voice commands you, compels you, in that shaky but authoritative way that she does when she’s afraid, and you listen. “You’re here with me now, Jessie, in my apartment. Kilgrave is _dead –_ you felt him _die_ beneath your hands, the crack of his neck – he can’t hurt you anymore. He can’t get to you. _Breathe,_ Jess _._ You’re _safe._ ”

Like clockwork, you gasp out, “Birch Street… Higgins Drive… Co… Cobalt Lane.” It’s more the sound and pace of the words that calm you down now, more so than the meaning behind them.

She pulls you to her and doesn’t let go.

 

It’s held in a downtown church, of all places. You’d never taken Trish for the religious type; if she was then she kept it to herself. Maybe she was the sort of Catholic who was too busy for mass, who would rather stay home and interpret the bible however she wanted, who kept little crosses and patron saint brooches on the dresser but never wore them, and looked down on anyone who used religion as an excuse to get out of anything, including basic human decency.

There’s a long line out the door that Malcolm leads you smoothly into. There’s so many people. Politicians, small-time celebrities, local reporters, bigwig network execs – everyone Trish has ever said a nice word to has gathered to celebrate her life. You don’t know if any of them were truly Trish’s friend outside of an interview and a phone call, or if they’re just putting in an appearance. Either way, they’ll fill out the pews nicely.

You inch forward in the line every few seconds or so, and then you hit the stone steps. Malcolm’s grip tightens on your arm a little and you look up to see everyone pay their respects to Dorothy Walker before they enter.

Her eyes fall on you and instantly they turn livid. Her head trembles just a little as she stares at you, as if she can’t even bear the audacity that you would show your face here. She was always such an impulsive lady, but she did have remarkable restraint and decorum in public. She won’t hit you in front of all these people, as much as she wants to.

You think that if she ever did raise a hand to you, though, you’d let her.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses at you, flashing perfect, poignant smiles at those behind you. “What did I tell you about staying away from here?”

“…I’m going to Trish’s funeral, mom,” you tell her bluntly. “You can’t stop me.”

“We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs Walker,” Malcolm says diplomatically and she flashes him a tight-lipped wry look. It settles back on you, and she looks you slowly up and down, like not even a clean, respectful ensemble and a little perfume can mask how much your shit stinks.

“Just when I was beginning to reconnect with my daughter,” she whispers. Her eyes burn red with tears. Her voice has a ragged, raw edge to it that you recognise all too clearly as pain.

Malcolm quickly moves you into the church before either of you can exchange another word.

You don’t know if he did that for your benefit or for hers.

 

You decide to stay over before the sun even sets. What starts out as a little political banter over fancy cheese and crackers and late-night news broadcasts easily turns into shared rose-tinted memories, which all too easily turns into talk about _feelings_. That thing that you hate most in the world, next to jogging.

You try to tell her. You’re drunk – drunker than usual, incredibly – and the timing feels about as right as you think it ever will. You abruptly go quiet as you wonder whether or not you want to ruin your friendship – ruin your sisterhood – and then you blurt out a teaser, before the moment’s gone, while you try to make yourself sound less cheesy.

“Hey, uh… What I said, in your car and on the docks a while back…” You meet her eye for a split-second and nod away. “I really meant it.”

You take another drink. There’s a baffled pause from Trish, the gentle clink of ice in your glass the only sound in the room, and it’s sharp. Everything is sharp.

“What are you talking about?” she asks, still amused from the last few hours of talk and laughter.

It’s painful, and you make a noise in the back of your throat that denotes that. “I mean, the _signal_ , that I came up with to let you know it was still me… the something I would never say.”

The warmth and amusement drains out of her face.

“I, um…” You look away and nod again, too jittery. Your voice sounds a little cracked. “I meant it.”

“I love you too, Jess.”

You throw your head back and huff out a small laugh. You don’t know how she can just _say it_ like that and not feel so overcome with hysterics and shame and nausea at how ridiculous it is. Besides, something in her tone of voice tells you that she doesn’t get it. You down the rest of your drink and stand up to fetch another, thinking that you really need a better immediate distinction between familial love and romantic love.

You get discouraged. “Forget it,” you mumble, turning away, but you’re stopped as she catches your arm. You sigh and warily look back at her.

Something in her face tells you that she gets it. “I said I _love you too_.”

She smiles hesitantly up at you and it robs you of your breath.

You kiss her and she kisses you back.

 

The service is long, much longer than you’re used to. Your hands itch for a bottle, for a flask, but you left it in your other jacket. Malcolm let you have a couple of shots back at your apartment, just to offset the withdrawal symptoms – it’s almost like you’re a real alcoholic or something, just what you always wanted – but he didn’t let you have anymore. For the most part, he’s making you sit through this service entirely sober. You’re both thankful and resentful.

You listen to Dorothy Walker take the podium and talk at length about her “success” as though that’s really an appropriate substitute for “daughter”. She talks about Patsy, but she doesn’t talk about what became of Patsy. She builds up the theatrical achievement of Trish’s younger years and praises the positive ratings of Trish’s radio talk show, and she politely leaves out all the years Trish wrestled with abuse and addiction and identity issues between.

It doesn’t surprise you how she takes all of the credit for Trish’s success and leaves out all the rest. It sickens you how predictable that is. She could never have made up for what she did, but she could’ve at least redeemed herself a little – for _Trish –_ by owning up to the fact that she was a far better agent than a mother. But she doesn’t. She sheds tears that don’t streak her make-up and she blows a little kiss up to the heavens.

Various others take the podium and share accounts of Trish you’d only ever heard in passing. Because Trish was modest and never liked to flaunt her good deeds.

Before the clergyman wraps up the service, he asks the crowd if there’s anyone who’d like to share anything more, any stories or kind words. You feel Malcolm turn to you expectantly, but you pretend not to notice. You keep your head down. You just sit there and keep your trap shut and you try not to let your bottom lip quiver as you think of all the many, many great things you could say about Trish Walker to all these people, but never will.

You’re all led into one last prayer to end the service and for once, you actually do more than just go through the motions. It’s your moment of weakness, and you wish that it’s all true. You wish that there really is a place called Heaven and that Trish is there now, in some form or other, and you wish that she could hear you when you pray to her how fucking _sorry_ you are.

You wouldn’t ever expect her to forgive you, if she could. You just want her to know that you’re _sorry,_ and you’ll continue to eat and breathe and live that word until death takes you too.


End file.
